


after the Great Fall.

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, Fallen Angels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 05:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17912591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: This is just a snippet from a short-story anthology that's technically connected to a novel, neither of which have been worked on in a few years, until I got Emo over angels thanks to my GO reread.When the Great Fall happens, it happens all at once.





	after the Great Fall.

When the Great Fall happens, it happens all at once.

It does not feel like _falling_ : instead, it is as if the very world comes up to meet it at speed, launched with impossible speed, and when its feet (feet! feet!) are struck from beneath by the awful ground, it screams. For the first time in its existence (for before now, it has never lived) the angel feels pain.

Many new experiences happen in one rush, in one singular moment: it fills lungs, which it never had before, and feels the cold air rush down a new throat to inflate them, feels it sting; it feels the desperate soak of the rain on its skin, trickling down its body and flattening the feathers of its wings; it screams, and it is chilled to find that the noise that comes forth is just that, just noise.

Corporeality cloaks its body in a new skin, made of flesh and bone and hair, and it screams, and screams, and screams.

The rain comes down from the heavens in heavy, steel-grey sheets, buffeting its fresh skin, and it comes down so heavily and so hard that every drop stings. The new flesh is delicate, and the bruises ache as they bloom to the surface, staining the pale expanse: it is gasping, its two arms (two arms!) clutched about its naked chest, and its two wings (blessed normality!) curve inward to shield it, even as it drops to its knees in the grass and the mud.

It is alone on the hillside, and it aches, for it has never been alone before: it has only ever been one of legions, one amidst an ordered unit, and here, in the grass, upon the earth, the loneliness takes its heart (a heart, now! what next? what next?) and cleaves it in two, pours salt into its veins, and its sobs are guttural and heaving, wrenched from its throat.

Time passes.

It has never experienced time before, time as a thing that moves, time as a river that washes over its shivering skin, and it has never experienced such cold as this, cold that eats beneath its skin, burrows into its bones, the only bare semblance of warmth coming in the tears that eke out from beneath its eyelids, so hot on its cheeks it thinks it will burn, it will burn—

It does not burn.

Exhaustion overtakes it, and it falls still in the mud, the filth clinging sticky to its skin, forming as sludge in its feathers.

When the rain stops, and the sun rises, it does not stir.

✲ ✶ ✲ ✶ ✲

“What is it?”

“I found him out by the wheat field—”

“What _is_ it?”

“He looked so… I couldn’t leave him, Maman, I couldn’t—"

The voices are heard through new ears, and it stays very, very still, digesting this. It can _feel_ it: each sound exits a throat, moving forth with a breath to fill its sails, and the sound expands outward, stopping where it reaches the dirt ground and the thickly padded hay, but bouncing where it hits the hard wood of the walls. _Sound_ : this is sound. It knows what sound is, and yet it is new.

Before now, a voice was a Voice, and such things as words came imparted heavy in the very mind, understanding instantaneous. Communication happened to _other_ beings: angels Knew, for that was their purpose.

Now, it Knows nothing, and knows even less, and it hears the soft whimper that comes from between its dry lips, hissing over its dry tongue. The sound is pathetic, lowly, and it tastes its shame, feels it ring within its body.

It lifts its head, feels the pain that suffuses its body, and it exhales, staring forward.

“My God _,”_ whispers the human before it, and it watches distantly as the human moves its hands, two fingers tracing a line from its forehead down to its chest, and then from shoulder to shoulder. What it means, the angel could not possibly know, and it stares down at its own hand, which is caked with mud. The skin is red-raw beneath its blanket of muck, and the hand shivers.

“Come,” says the voice of the other one, which is lower, and it feels the touch against its cheek, and it cries out, keens. The touch is so _warm_ , and more than that, it is the touch of _life_ , a soul under that warm skin, a soul— “Oh, hey, hey,” the voice says, and it says it in the angel’s ear, for the angel is wrapped tight around its body, sobbing against the speaker’s chest.

“Jules—”

“He’s fine, he’s fine,” Jules says, and the angel desperately curls its wings around them, presses its face closer to the breast of the one called _Jules_ , but it is not the same: it is used to being in amongst the natural Graces of a thousand angels, a hundred thousand, and this is but one human soul, just one. “He barely weighs anything,” he says, and when the angel feels the pang of _sympathy_ , the new emotion all but knocks it down, its knees buckling. “Oh, hey,” Jules says, and his hands alight firm on the angel’s waist, gripping it to keep it upright, draped as it is about his neck. “Alright, here…”

The angel doesn’t let go as the human Jules gently pushes it backward, bringing it down to sit upon the hay again, and it heaves in gasps of air, feeling the instinct although the practice is _new_ , and it looks, for the first time, at his face.

Jules _is_ a human: a man, perhaps approaching thirty years of age. His cheeks are dusky and tanned with hard work in the sun, and his hair is long and drawn back from his face, tied at his neck and put back behind his ears. His nose has been broken, the angel thinks: it has seen humans with crooked noses, like this one, but never from down here, beneath the firmament, only from _Heaven_.

It has never been to Earth before.

It reaches up, touching Jules’ cheek with its palm, feeling the heat, feeling the regular flow of his blood in his veins, and it shudders in an uncertain breath. Jules has eyes of a wine-dark brown, and it can see in their depths concern, concern and _sympathy_ , and curiosity… The emotions flood over it like a wave, and it closes its own eyes, gripping tightly at Jules’ shoulder. Their bodies are flush together, and the angel cannot stand to pull away, but it hears the noise of the other human, and it looks at her.

She is older, it thinks: it sees in her face the same dusky skin, the same shape in the mouth, and it _feels_ the similarity in her blood, and his blood. This is Jules’ _mother_ … It remembers the first of them, Eve, remembers her heavy with child, and holding the first of them against her breast…

It looks to Jules, and Jules smiles at it. It is a small smile, and it watches his lips curve up to form it.

It hesitates. It feels the face, feels it, and it forces its mouth to move, feeling the strange pull of unfamiliar muscles (muscles! muscles! it has never needed muscles before!), at its cheeks, at its lips…

Jules’ smile deepens, and his gaze comes from the angel’s face to its wings, which are… They have _feathers_ , now, and the wings sprout from between its shoulder blades, expanding outward. It had never had feathers before, never, it never… The feathers are a golden-brown, and Jules reaches up, his fingers brushing against the soft down, and the angel gasps at the strange touch, the strange sensation.

“It could be dangerous,” the mother says. It can feel the anxiety radiating from her, and it leans closer to the other, feeling his quiet confidence, its _warmth_. This emotion, this is new: _indulgence_.

“I don’t think he is,” Jules says softly, fingers still brushing through the feathers, and the angel’s eyes flutter closed, its face falling against the human’s breast once more, its nose pressed as tight as it can be against the rough wool of its vestments, its fingers gripping tightly at the fabric. “He’s just frightened, and scared. What happened?”

It doesn’t respond, not until Jules’ fingers come away from its wing, and instead touch against its chin, pushing it up to look at him. It stares into Jules’ eyes, into his beseeching expression.

“Can you talk?” he asks quietly, not unkindly.

It has never talked before. It knows only the Word, knows _instructions_ , has put forward messages, but it has never wrapped a teeth and a tongue about its speech, and made it audible. But the human Jules has _asked_ it, and if it is silent, that would be a lie, would it not? It _can_ talk, it thinks: it has a tongue, and lips, and a larynx, and a voice…

“Yes,” it says. The sound is soft and mellifluous, though slightly hoarse, and it makes Jules smile again, wider this time. It likes that smile. _Likes_. It likes! _Likes!_ “I Fell,” it says. “I Fell… I did nothing to deserve it: I wanted for nothing, yearned for nothing beyond my station. I was…”

It trails off.

To Fall is the great punishment: to Fall is to err, and be found judged.

“I did nothing,” it repeats.

Confusion radiates from Jules and the mother alike, and it closes its eyes, the emotion uncomfortable where it touches its unconsciousness.

“What are you?” Jules asks. His hand, once more, trails through its feathers, pressing into the down this time, and it clings to him tightly, not daring to let go. His voice is full of wonder: so too is his heart, and the wonderment makes it think of blessed creation, and it keeps its eyes closed, clutching all the harder at this human, at this man, at this _soul_. It feels such sorrow it can scarcely stand it, and it feels as if it weights it down.

“Fallen,” it says again. “I am Fallen.”

"Oh," Jules says, as if he understands, although he cannot, he mustn't: his hand curls in the angel's hair (hair? hair!), clutches at him, and draws him closer. He feels the angel's sorrow, it thinks, and takes such pity on it, such pity. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, and the angel doesn't hear as he goes on, talking to the woman, the mother, perhaps talking to the angel itself. It hears nothing but the slow beat of the heart beneath its ear, and once more, it begins to weep.


End file.
